Port Arrival Times for linked reservations

[m1ckeym0use1]

We have a 4 night Wish cruise coming up in October. We haven't cruised since before covid, and it sounds like things have changed a bit as far as boarding the ship.

We are traveling with first time Disney cruisers. We booked adjacent rooms and linked the reservations on Disney's website. We did online checkin roughly the same time, but we got 12:15 port arrival and they got 1:00pm port arrival. As we are traveling together, would they let us all arrive at 12:15, or do we need to wait?

Also, we are Platinum status but our companions are first time cruisers. Is there still a separate desk for platinum checkin?

And off topic... a we have adjoining rooms, are they able to open the balcony divider between the two rooms?

Appreciate any info on this or anything that has changed significantly since we cruised with Disney pre-covid.


Thanks!

 

[CamColt]

We are pearl and traveled with silver guests recently. We arrived separately at our assigned times. Although we had BG 2, since they had BG 7 we waited to board with them. I'm pretty sure they would not have been allowed to board with 2.

In general things are fairly normal again since covid. 1 of the biggest things still around that I can think of is there is no buffet portion at Palo Brunch.

 

[cvjw]

There is a separate check in line at PC for platinum and pearl guests.

Most balcony dividers can be opened. A few can’t. There is a list floating around somewhere of the dividers that don’t open.

I would just wait until the later PAT if you want to board together.

 

[kiford]

There is a separate line for Pearl/Platinum.

In Jan 2023, we had very different PATs than our friends (they had 11:30, and I think ours was about 1ish), but we arrived together as we were staying with them, and they drove. We asked if we would be allowed to board together, and they did change our boarding number to theirs. We are both Platinum, so perhaps that had some influence. When you did online check-in (at that time), it said that they would try (no guarantees) to accommodate those who had different check-in times, but I noticed when I just checked in for a November cruise that it said that you should plan to arrive at the later check-in time so perhaps too many people asked this. Fortunately, we were both able to get the same PAT this time because we are once again staying with them, and they are driving. I prefer to arrive later, but they like to leave the house early because they don't trust the traffic. Last time, there was a traffic jam, which took an hour to get through, so they're probably right, but it means that it can be hard to coordinate later arrival times if there's a mismatch in our PATs.

 

[RedHead0186]

You should plan to wait for the later PAT. There's a chance they may let the later PAT in early, especially if it's not busy, but not guarantee. The point of PATs is to reduce crowding/long lines at the terminal. There will be a separate check in line for you: PC has lines for each CC level (except Pearl and Platinum together) and Concierge.